


Open House

by merry_amelie



Series: Academic Arcadia [188]
Category: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Genre: Alternate Reality, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-20
Updated: 2012-03-20
Packaged: 2018-04-10 10:31:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4388399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merry_amelie/pseuds/merry_amelie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An Arcadian tour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Open House

**Author's Note:**

  * For [obi1mcgregor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/obi1mcgregor/gifts).



> Feedback: Is treasured at merryamelie@aol.com (or leave a comment).
> 
> Disclaimer: Mr. Lucas owns everything Star Wars. I'm not making any money.
> 
> For  
> My beta team: Nerowill, Emila-Wan, and Carol  
> Mali Wane for posting  
> My former betas: Alex, Ula, and Padawan Sue
> 
> You can read more about Quinn's train set in [A Long-expected Anniversary](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1798036).

  
[Sue](mailto:suechosethis@gmail.com)'s beautiful manip

On a beautiful Saturday afternoon in early March, Ian was sprawled on the couch, watching American Cup gymnastics, when he heard a car pull up in the driveway. He looked out the living room window and saw a young woman, about the age of his students, step out from the driver's side of a Toyota and start up the path to the front door.  
  
"Quinn!" he called out to his husband, who was working in his home office. "We have company."  
  
Quinn stretched as he came out of the office, then tucked his shirt into his jeans and ran a hand through his hair. "I'm glad of the interruption, lad. I'll need all of my diplomatic skills to keep my class awake during my lecture on 'The Ambassadors' next week." Henry James' meandering sentences -- complete with pauses, asides, and turn-of-the-20th-century formality -- tended to make better bedtime than classtime reading.  
  
"Now that'll be a hard slog," Ian commiserated, "but at least it's not 'Bleak House.'" Ian snuck in a sweet kiss while they still had their privacy.  
  
The doorbell rang, but Ian kept his lips right where they were for an intoxicating moment before reluctantly disentangling from Quinn to answer it.  
  
A heavyset girl with reddish brown hair gave him a tentative smile. "Hi, my name is Marra Jay and I used to live here when I was a kid."  
  
Ian grinned back reassuringly. "Hello, I'm Ian Prentice and this is my husband, Quinn Masterson."  
  
Marra shook hands with both of them. "A pleasure to meet you."  
  
"Come in, come in," said Quinn. He took her jacket and hung it on a peg by the door, pleased to see her smile had not faltered when Ian introduced him as his husband. As he saw daily at Luke, the young tended to be the most open-minded and accepting of marriage equality.  
  
Artoo and Sandy decided to greet their visitor, too, and sniffed her sneakers and the hem of her jeans intently.  
  
Quinn introduced their little family. "Sandy is our fox terrier, and Artoo is our chihuahua."  
  
"Oh, they're just adorable," Marra said. "We had a terrier, too, but she was wire-haired. And my boyfriend has a chihuahua." She put out a hand for Sandy's inspection, and when he licked her, she started to pet him.  
  
Quinn ushered her into the living room after a few minutes of scritches for both lucky pups. "Please have a seat."  
  
The television was still on -- ah, the parallel bars, Ian sighed to himself -- so he clicked it off when she sank down into an easy chair, Sandy and Artoo in a pile by her shoes.  
  
"Believe it or not, some of your mom's brownies are still left," Ian teased his herven.  
  
"Now how did that ever happen? Must've missed them earlier," Quinn teased back.  
  
"So how 'bout helping us finish them?" Ian asked Marra with a grin.  
  
"Sounds delicious," Marra said politely.  
  
Ian went to the kitchen on a mission for brownies and skim milk, leaving Quinn to handle the diplomatic duties by himself.  
  
"When did you and your family live here?" Quinn asked, sitting across from her on the couch.  
  
"In the late '90s, when I was just a little girl," Marra said. "This was my very first home, so it means a lot to me."  
  
"I can see why," said Quinn. "We've been very happy here, too."  
  
Ian came back holding a tray with their snack. After offering brownies and cups of milk to Marra and Quinn, he sat back on the couch next to his husband and started eating. As always, Ginny's brownies were out of this world, and they all savored them for a few moments in silence.  
  
Marra gazed abstractedly at the brown leather of their sofa recliners and the easy chairs with their cream upholstery. She said, "Looks strange to see your couch and chairs in here. We had a mint-green sectional. I used to fall asleep on it when I watched T.V. after my homework."  
  
Ian chuckled. "We fall asleep here after grading homework all the time."  
  
"You're teachers, then?" Marra asked.  
  
Quinn nodded. "We're in the English Department at Luke."  
  
Marra sighed ruefully. "I tried to get in there, but a 3.5 cum isn't good enough these days. I'm starting classes at Quinnipiac in the fall."  
  
"A good school, as well," said Ian diplomatically.  
  
Marra gazed around the living room, looking even younger than her 18 years, as if returning to her childhood home had rejuvenated her. She took note of the different photos on the mantel, the different pictures on the wall, the different placement of furniture.  
  
When Marra saw the Hildebrandt brothers' painting, 'Gandalf Visits Bilbo at Bag End,' vivid against the wheat-colored wall, she lit up even more. 'The Hobbit' is my favorite book," she said with great enthusiasm.  
  
"We love it, too," Quinn said, and even this was something of an understatement.  
  
"Can't wait until the first film comes out in December," said Marra.  
  
"We're so lucky that Jackson decided to split the book into two movies," Quinn added.  
  
Ian nodded. "Well, it worked like a charm for Harry Potter."  
  
Quinn noticed Ian's pun, of course, but decided to spare him his groan when they had a guest. Plenty of time for teasing after Marra left.  
  
When she finished her brownies, Ian asked, "Would you like a grand tour of the house, then?"  
  
"Oh, I'd really appreciate it! Thank you for offering," Marra said excitedly. Her sneakers sank into the sand-colored deep-pile carpeting as she followed the men around the house.  
  
Quinn was quietly grateful that they'd just had the family over yesterday night for a Scrabble blowout, so the place was still relatively clean.  
  
After a nod from Quinn, Ian opened the door to his husband's office. "Here's Quinn's 'home away from school,'" he quipped.  
  
"This was our dining room," Marra said. She looked at what seemed like a metric ton of books and exams covering every surface, eyes widening fast. Quinn's cherrywood desk was barely visible under the March blizzard of paper. "And here I thought we students had to do most of the work!"  
  
"A common misconception," said Quinn drolly.  
  
Marra said, "Well, it looks like you're putting this room to better use than we ever did."  
  
Quinn's laptop picked that moment to beep, all but invisible under a layer of make-up exams, and the three of them laughed.  
  
"And to think we only came in here when we had company." Marra's eyes sparkled with humor.  
  
Quinn flipped the switch to start his 'Hobbiton Local' train set for their guest, knowing she would enjoy it after her effusive comments about Tolkien. The little carriages chugged their way around the room, hugging the amber-painted walls.  
  
Marra hurried over to look at Ian's craftsmanship. "I always wanted trains growing up, but my folks probably thought they were for boys."  
  
Quinn let her play with them for a while, then Ian led them over to the kitchen, with its creamy walls and terra cotta tiles.  
  
Marra whistled. "My mom had an ultra-modern chrome dinette in here. Your hardwood table's much cozier." She smiled when she saw Lelia's drawings on the fridge. "My doodlings were up there for years. Do you two have children?"  
  
The ease of Marra's question thrilled through Ian -- so casual, so clearly a non-issue for her.  
  
"No," Quinn answered. "Lelia, our wonderful little niece, made those."  
  
Marra stepped closer to the refrigerator to see the artwork better. A tiny white ball of fluff, which was probably supposed to be a chick, nuzzled into a brown rabbit. "Ah, I can see she's getting ready for Easter."  
  
Ian nodded. "We're trying to go easy on the candy for her, but she's got quite a sweet tooth, especially for those dark chocolate eggs filled with vanilla cream."  
  
"Don't we all?" Marra said indulgently.  
  
Quinn smiled at Ian; as Marra had just said, Lelia wasn't the only one with a sweet tooth. He had just found another truffle -- hidden in the umbrella stand -- in his office at work. Ian's gifts from Valentine's Day kept on giving.  
  
The next stop on their impromptu tour was the guest bedroom, which Ian used as his office.  
  
"This was my bedroom," Mara said eagerly. She took it all in with a happy sigh. "Oh, wow! I used to have pink-and-white-striped wallpaper in here." She touched the cream-painted wall, as if she found it hard to believe that her childhood bedroom no longer existed, at least the way she remembered it.  
  
"There was an applique' tree right here where my hand is," she said, her eyes bright. "It had sheep dancing around it. My nightlight was next to it, and I'd look at it before falling asleep."  
  
"Sounds like a lovely room for a child," said Ian.  
  
"Yes, it was," Marra said. "I had my desk where yours is --the best light is by that window." She grinned at all the papers on it. "I see you're almost as bad as your husband."  
  
"Oh, he's much worse, believe me," Quinn drawled, winking at Ian. He discreetly kicked an errant tube of lube under the bed, thankful that he was across the room from Marra, so she couldn't see his impulsive soccer move. Though this was technically the guest bedroom, it had hosted Ian's and his lovemaking sessions whenever they were too impetuous to make it back to the master bedroom. Like last night, for example.  
  
Luckily, Marra had waited until now to turn her attention to the other side of the room. "My height chart, which had bear cubs on it, was on this closet door. And my stuffed animals were on the shelves."  
  
"Now, it's just more books and papers, I'm afraid," Ian said wryly. "I do think Lelia has a teddy bear or two in here, though."  
  
"Good luck finding anything under those sedimentary layers." Quinn laughed. "I keep expecting to discover diamond formations, but I guess we'll have to wait a few more millennia for that."  
  
Ian revelled in his husband's teasing. "Actually, I remember saving a stuffed polar bear I found in the back corner of a shelf."  
  
Marra's jaw almost dropped. "Do you still have it?"  
  
Ian rummaged through his bins on the lower shelves, then called in Quinn to do a sweep of the top shelf with his arm. A little white bear came tumbling down, which Ian caught with one hand, in a virtuoso display of his Jedi-caliber skills.  
  
"Snowy!" Marra exclaimed, grabbing the bear from Ian's fingers. "My dad gave him to me when he returned from a business trip." She cradled the bear in her arms. "Thank you very much!"  
  
"You're welcome," said Ian.  
  
He and Quinn looked on fondly at the reunion, reminded of their niece and her stuffed timberwolf, which they'd brought back from Quebec.  
  
Luckily, Marra spared Quinn from having to mention that the master bedroom was off-limits on their little tour, by saying, "No need to see my parents' old bedroom. I hardly went in there as a kid, anyway." Apparently, Quinn and Ian weren't the only diplomats present.  
  
Marra peeked into the guest bathroom down the hall. "This was mine," she said. "Pink wallpaper, marble countertop, and the scent of Herbal Essence shampoo. I can almost smell it even now."  
  
After that description, Ian was even more grateful that their bathroom was now a study in soothing blue -- aquamarine shower curtain, sea-blue tiles, blue-green towels.  
  
"Well, that's it for the house," Quinn said. "Would you like to see the back yard?"  
  
"That would be wonderful," Marra said. "You guys are so good to me."  
  
They got their jackets -- with Marra putting Snowy in her pocket -- and headed out back to stand on the lawn. Quinn was glad it was another unseasonably warm day, so it was a pleasure to be out here. His eyes were as warm as the sun shining down on them when he smiled at his lad and put his arm around him.  
  
"Wow! Would you look at all these trees." Marra gazed around the huge lot in amazement. She walked up to an oak tree far taller than Quinn and said, "When I was here last, this tree came up to my chin."  
  
"I know the feeling," said Ian. "The same thing's happened to me at my folks' house in New Jersey."  
  
Quinn showed her his garden patch, all sweet potential at the moment. "In a few weeks, you'll be able to see the daffodils and jonquils I've planted."  
  
Taking a last look at the house and grounds, Marra said, "Thank you very much for letting me revisit so many good times. I'm grateful to you both."  
  
Quinn said, "We're delighted you came. There's nothing like seeing your childhood home again."  
  
"I'm glad to see that it's in such good hands now," she said.  
  
Ian said, "Don't be a stranger, okay? Quinnipiac's right up the Taconic Parkway."  
  
The three of them walked around to the driveway, where Quinn opened the door of the Toyota for Marra. Then they waved at her until she turned the corner of their street.  
  
Ian and Quinn ambled back, hand in hand, to the home which had so lovingly sheltered two happy little families.


End file.
